Posts Tagged ‘Shopping’

Rebranding

Posted: 25/11/2013 in photography
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
10

Greetings to all my loyal friends and followers, I thought that I would take a little time out to share a few things with you.

My new camera (Canon EOS 6D for those of you not paying attention) has finally arrived, I can’t recommend that you stay further away from www.valuebasket.com , yes I got a fantastic deal but their customer service is non existent and their lead times in today’s world are just unacceptable, especially seeing as they felt the need to lie to me about them on a regular basis. I could have dealt with a three week lead time if I’d been told that’s how long it was going to take at the point of order, instead it began at 3-5 days then 7-10 days then 7-10 working days, then in the next few days with none of their staff having the first idea what was actually going on. Still I have my baby and I’ve named him Luke, he is an ugly baby, but boy oh boy does he take some purdy pictures.

As I am now taking my photography more seriously as a business I was having a difficult time explaining the brand behind Mr Bunny Chow, and whilst Mr Bunny Chow is going nowhere I am now going back to my roots as a blogger on these pages and have re-branded  my Facebook page to my real name www.facebook.com/robtwigwood and also launched a very simple professional site www.robtwigwood.com please check them out and let me know what you think.

Since Luke arrived I’ve been lucky enough to go out on two occasions with Lee from Lenses of Croydon and Inner Circle Photography, last weekend we went into London to look at the Taylor Wessing Portrait Exhibition in the National Portrait Gallery followed by a wander around Borough Market. This was definitely a learning process for me, I adore the way that Luke’s depth of field is super shallow in comparison to  my experiences on a crop frame camera, I am not going to get too geeky on you here but I definitely need to be super careful not to over use this. It is also incredible how much clearer photo’s are at much higher ISO’s than my older camera. I am a very happy boy.

see what I mean about the super shallow depth of field

see what I mean about the super shallow depth of field

pretty owl biscuits

pretty owl biscuits

loved how vibrant these olives looked

loved how vibrant these olives looked

mmmm bacon

mmmm bacon

could this cheese seller be more French?

could this cheese seller be more French?

yummy cheese

yummy cheese

pretty merengues

pretty meringues

This Saturday Lee and I again ventured into London to go on a photowalk with the internationally infamous Australian Photographer and Youtube celebrity Matt Granger. The walk was pretty fun and it was great to meet so many like minded photographers, although as it was super busy we didn’t get as much time to pick Matt’s brain as we would have liked, just observing the way in which he interacts with people was fascinating. I managed to pick up a few shots that I was really happy with. While I’m here I’d like to highlight the http://www.savethesouthbank.com/ website, as I passionately believe that this park is culturally important to London and would hate for it to disappear.

tracking shot within the South Bank Skate Park, again please sign their petition.

tracking shot within the South Bank Skate Park, again please sign their petition.

just a candid portrait I liked

just a candid portrait I liked

Lee being Lee

Lee being Lee

the winter sun catching St Pauls

the winter sun catching St Paul’s Cathederal

Matt Granger (in the middle) being creepy with an Ice Light

Matt Granger (in the middle) being creepy with an Ice Light

could you get a more London shot of London?

could you get a more London shot of London?

So what next for me and Mr Bunny Chow?

I am currently taking bookings for next years wedding season so please do put me in touch with anyone getting married, having babies or doing anything else they might want photographing, I believe my rates are highly competitive and I’ll always do my best to work within any budget.

Hope you are all well

TTFN

Mr Bunny Chow (aka Rob)

Advertisement

A giveaway for your help and advice!!!

Posted: 18/04/2013 in Bunny Chow, Mr Bunny Chow, photography
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
34

Well the amazing news is that I’ve been offered the opportunity to exhibit some of my photography at a local gallery.  Unfortunately there are costs involved in this honour and I need to weigh them up – the obvious costs being printing and framing, but I also need to hire the wall space (the lowest cost being a  6′ x 6′ area of wall) which has a two-week minimum hire charge.

My ego says hire the whole hall, print hundreds of pictures, leave them for six months and you’ll be a millionaire by then.  The reality is more like hire one 6′ x 6′ area for a month to six weeks and print out six strong images.

But how do I decide which pictures? Am I going to sell any of them?  How much will people be willing to spend on them? How much do I spend on framing?

This my dear friends of the blogosphere is where I am seeking your help…..

Please look through the pictures and let me have your comments on any or all of the following:
* which six prints I should go with;
* whether you would have them on your wall;
* how much would you be willing to pay for a framed copy of approx 10″x 8″ inches;
* should I go with a theme, wildlife as a whole/owls/big cats/Brighton etc. etc. etc.?

Print 1

Print 1

Print 25

Print 2

Print 24

Print 3

Print 23

Print 4

Print 22

Print 5

Print 21

Print 6

Print 20

Print 7

Print 19

Print 8

Print 18

Print 9

Print 17

Print 10

Print 16

Print 11

Print 15

Print 12

Print 14

Print 13

Print 13

Print 14

Print 12

Print 15

Print 11

Print 16

Print 10

Print 17

Print 9

Print 18

Print 8

Print 19

Print 7

Print 20

Print 6

Print 21

Print 5

Print 22

Print 4

Print 23

Print 3

Print 24

Print 2

Print 25

Please share this post around your friends – I will be giving away one personalised signed print (of your choice) to whomever writes the most helpful comment (not in the least bit impartial but it’s my competition) wherever in the world you may hail from.

I need to make some decisions in the next fortnight so that’s how long I’ll keep the initial run open for. Don’t forget to mention which print number you’d like as your prize.

Please feel to leave your comments below or you can go through the Facebook page or email them directly to rantingmrbunnychow@gmail.com

You see I am agonising over every aspect – I need your help!

Take care and thank you in advance

TTFN

Mr Bunny Chow

P.S. I reserve the right to ignore all advice and take more pretty pictures between now and when the exhibition happens.

Ouch 4

Posted: 25/06/2012 in ouch
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
6

woohoo, great news the NHS have finally pulled finger (pun wholly intended) and scheduled me in for my thumb operation on Tuesday the 10th of July.

I’m not going to go into great detail explaining my injury again but you can read my older posts here or just go through life happy in the knowledge that I stabbed myself whilst being an idiot and not paying suitable attention to what I was doing.

My numerous visits to hospitals and healthcare professionals afterwards also meant that I picked up a nasty superbug type infection that I’m not allowed to treat until the week before my surgery, meaning lots and lots of niggling sickness, colds flu’s etc.

The only thing I can be truly grateful for is that I stabbed my thumb not the neck of my mate that was behind it.

Be safe, be careful and remember that whilst knives are cool and macho they are not toys and should be treated with respect.

TTFN

Mr Bunny Chow

Mazda5 Furano Hits and Misses

Posted: 17/02/2012 in being dad, parking
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0
Mazda5

Image via Wikipedia this isn't my car but the same colour and spec

We’ve now had the Mazda5 for a hundred miles or so and I thought I’d take a few minutes to share a few of my thoughts on how I find the car to live with on a day-to-day basis.

I’ll start out with the hits:

There is plenty of space with the seats moving in and out of their multitudinous functions with ease, it’s really great to be able to raise and lower seats single-handed when the other hand is invariably busy trying to hang on to a wriggling toddler. We’ve taken her shopping and made use of the extra seats a couple of times. I’ve even laid them all flat and loaded her up to the gunwales with half of a giant jungle gym we bought sight unseen.

maybe we should have thought about this before agreeing to buy it even if it's really cheap

I still have to go back and collect the rest of it, I probably could have got more in but ran out of time before work. Still it really is a huge amount of space and really easily accessible because of the clever seats and massive doors. Accessibility is after all why we needed a new car in the first place.

I’m also surprised by how sporty and quick it feels. Yes I’m sat high up but the 2.0l petrol engine is free revving and really picks up its skirt if you make use of your right foot in a lead booted manner, I was expecting to miss the performance of my Audi but the raspy Mazda engine if anything makes this feel quicker than the more refined Audi. Looking at my speed reference points, i.e. places where I know what speed is safe and possible, shows that the Audi probably has the edge but it’s much closer than I would have expected and certainly entertaining.  

For such a big car it’s incredibly easy to parallel park with huge mirrors, massive amounts of glass and the parking sensors we had fitted I’ve found I’m no longer driving round the block looking for bigger spaces as I was in the Audi.

Misses:

I’m probably being overly picky but here are some of my thoughts. Firstly if you’re in the market for a Mazda5 seriously consider whether you need/want the larger 17″ alloy wheels, they are certainly better looking than the 15″ or 16″ options on the market but boy do they make for a firm ride. I’m sure a lot of it is to do with the fact that the Mazda5 is trying to be a dad’s MPV and sporty or Zoom Zoom in Mazda parlance but it is possible to develop a sporty chassis/suspension setup that absorbs the bumps in the road as opposed to simply trying to bash them/my spine into submission. I know that I have been spoiled for the last couple of years but ouch.

The interior plastics are a little scratchy but that’s to be expected, what does get on my goat though are the information displays. At any one time I can either see what the outside temperature or the temperature I’ve set my climate control to. Minor irritation but still there. On the other side of the info display though is the one that’s really getting on my nerves I can either see the clock or information on fuel consumption, why, why why is the clock not always visible, which idiot made the decision to scrimp on a very cheap LCD display for an always on clock.

While we’re on the subject of fuel consumption the on dash display which is generally hiding behind the clock is set to display as litres per hundred miles, now I grew up in Africa and we always measured consumption there in litres per 100kms but I’ve been in Britain for a long time now so had gotten used to miles per gallon, it made sense to me and provided a reference for me to compare consumption between vehicles. The most obvious answer is that there should be a way of being able to choose the unit of measurement and I was even a big enough man to resort to reading the manual, well I looked at the pictures and still I cannot figure it out so at least for now I have no idea how much fuel I’m using. I’ll either figure it out or just get used to it but for now at the end of 100 odd miles and week one its irritating me.

Otherwise I’m happy with our purchase, We’ve been back and checked on the dealership we made the trade with and of course they’ve got our old cars on the forecourt marked up at 90% profit, but to be fair this will have been eaten into a huge amount by the work they needed to be prepped for sale, with things like MOT’s paint blemishes, ok scratches and general toddler filth, I don’t think we did too badly even if the dealer is still the one with the biggest smile.

Anyway those are my thoughts for the week.

TTFN

Mr Bunny Chow